back to article Dell dumps RIM, saves fortune

Dell reckons it will cut costs by a quarter when staff dump 25,000 BlackBerrys for its own Windows Phone 7 handsets, and is encouraging others to do the same. The plan starts next week, and will see 25,000 staff getting Dell handsets - initially the Venue Pro which is the largest of the Windows Phone 7 handsets, but the only …

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  1. John Tserkezis
    Thumb Down

    Interesting to see how popular that turns out to be.

    "It also means that some Dell employees will need to find a Wi-Fi hotspot to check their mail."

    Especially interesting for their users who have come to rely on email while on the move, and how loud they'll scream.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Gates Halo

      Missing the point

      The article in no way explains why some Dell users might need to find a wi-fi connection. My company has BES but I prefer to use Exchange Sync on my Android and Windows phones. In no way have I ever been disadvantaged by not choosing a Crackberry.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I wonder

    how much Microsoft paid for this PR stunt.... I assume it came out the half a billion "FUD Pot" for WinMo7

    1. Jim Coleman
      Flame

      Well

      The answers are "Nothing" and "No" respectively. This is Dell's PR "stunt", not Microsoft's. It stands to reason they would want their staff to use their own products, no?

      Have you got some kind of pathological MS hatred complex? If so you should see a shrink. Probably sooner rather than later, if those latest figures showing developer interest in WP7 for 2011 matches iPad and exceeds iPhone, and is nipping at the heels of Android, are correct. You're going to be seeing a lot more MS product in your face.

      1. JaitcH
        Alert

        Re: Have you got some kind of pathological MS hatred complex?

        This condition is naturally acquired by using Windows 2000 or Vista - although not necessarily pathological.

        BTW, what do we call the Win7 equivalents of iPhans?

      2. Tempest
        Gates Horns

        You're going to be seeing a lot more MS product in your face.

        Not I.

        The office has switched to Linux as has the country. Still I miss those wonderful blue screens that MS perfected. Latin America has gone off Windows, too.

      3. Joe Montana
        WTF?

        Why not android?

        There is clearly some bribery going on here from MS, or else why would dell (who are claiming they want to save money) choose windows phone 7, a new and untested platform which they have to pay for over android which is tried, tested and free to them?

        As i understand it, dell have had android phones out on the market for a lot longer than windows phone 7 has been around and also have a wider range of android phones available (which would surely cut costs even further because not all employees would need the highest model).

        1. pan2008

          WP7

          Have you used a WP7? If you do maybe you will understand why Dell chose the 'immature' platform.

      4. Wibble

        Dell eating WinDog dog food

        Competition's great. But in this case Dell have to eat their WinDog dog food; if they don't then who else would. What a minging phone though - I bet the employees are well miffed with handing in their dedicated and finely tuned crackberries for a house brick of a glorified Skype phone!

        We don't have a pathological hatred of all things Microsoft. We do have years of suffering their bloody awful products and have wasted years of development time. So if it seems like we're anti, we're not it's just our enjoyment of watching Microsoft squirm as the ball is on the other foot for a change.

        I doubt if we're going to see endless 'new' products from Microsoft simply because they've forgotten how to innovate.

        Oh, I'm writing this on an iPad. Where's the Microsoft equivalent?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Irony?

      So you'll engage in your own speculative FUD and can't see the hypocrisy?

      Class act.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Actually...

      Dell should be eating their own dog food. Whether the OS is Windows 7 Phone or Android or another is moot , as is the platform that they are migrating from.

  3. Mark Dowling
    Thumb Down

    How's that Streak thing going anyway?

    Dell have yet to prove their bona fides on mobile platforms.

  4. PushF12
    Megaphone

    Attention Round Rock Employees

    The public use of your Windows 7 phone is a necessary precondition for ongoing employment at Dell. The development reimbursement that we received from Microsoft is worth more than either your salaried time or your personal satisfaction.

    Be advised that all other mobile devices are not fun and therefore require a business case that is subject to review by HR and the nearest VP responsible for keeping Microsoft happy.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Lots of WP7 phones.....

    So thats 85,000 WP7's for Microsoft employees, another 25,000 for Dell employees...

    It's a good way of getting high phone usage figures quickly.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Halo

      Good marketing

      Good for Dell. It's also a great way to get your employees to advertise a product to their friends and associates. Just good business. Sometimes I wonder if Reg comment posters actually take business into consideration. No company exists for the goodness of mankind alone, as much as people might like that to be the case. Profit. Profit. Profit.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Will they be dumping them on Fleabay?

    Simply as I need one not on tarriff, and there might be some decent ones amongst the 25,000.

  7. Heff
    FAIL

    massive windows OEM reseller

    to sell windows phones, move internals to windows equipment.

    its not news, its Dell.

    @Push ; you work for them? you have no idea how creepily accurate that is. I feel bad for the peeps stuck at Dell that now have to learn new tech just because some weakminded PHBtard went and played golf and ate dinner with an MS rep with an agenda.

    "we saved some money, chained ourselves a little tighter to redmond, pissed off at least 25k employees and lost a boatload of productivity as our main infrastructure communications lines grind to a halt."

    idiots.

  8. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Typing

    It does look like a massive phone. Largely due to the keyboard not taking up screen space like on the Blackberry phones which have keys.

    The keyboard action and feel is make or break. It should be pretty high up the list of priorities when designing a phone like this. If the keyboard is rubbish then you may as well not include one and drop the price a bit. You can always use one of those new funky touch screen typing techniques.

    It will be interesting to see how this pans out. After all, Microsoft still considers WinM0 6.5 to be their business phone. The WP7 platform is consumer orientated.

  9. Doug Glass
    Go

    The Way It Works

    I retired for the largest electricity producing company in the USofA in 2008. Just this year we got our gas stove. Those of you not in the corporate world have no idea of how it really works. Sometimes i laugh out loud at what I read here; thank you all for such rich entertainment. My bride usually thinks I've read another employment ad I just say no; enjoying the babes in the woods again.

  10. thecakeis(not)alie

    If they aren't using BES...

    ...what are they using for Mobile Deivce Management? This I would very much so like to know...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Nokian would have been better choise

    Very good Mail for Exchange integration - with three step installation. Also for Gmail, MSN or Yahoo! Mail, and so on.

    State of art security features. And also better Application Store (Ovi) vs. Windows Mobile 7.

    Not to mention Qt integration in Symbian^3 (installable to earlier versions, also) - world class application developping environment, if existing apps are not enough to you (currently most likely that is the case, shame on Nokia for that).

  12. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Will they deploying Zune to all 25k desktops?

    Seriously, would someone who owns one of these phones tell me if you can charge them without Zune like how the old WinMob devices wouldn't charge over USB without ActiveSync installed?

    Anyone...?

  13. vegister

    zimbra

    while they're at it they could dump Exchange and go for Zimbra. Works nicely with Active Sync on mobiles.

  14. NotAniFreak
    Happy

    Charging WP7 on a PC

    My corporate PC has locked down USB ports and I'm unable to install Zune but WP7 charges fine at work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Thank you!

      Finally an answer - thank you!

      I'm stuck on a WinMob device and that issue absolutely drives me up the wall - especially now that the ActiveSync replacement for Win7 requires a Genuine Advantage check (meaning you have to download and run 2 pieces of software just to charge the damn phone). At the very least Microsoft appears to have it right on this one.

      Cheers!

    2. carlos_c

      BES Express ?

      mmmm Bes express is only for 75 users.......not really relevent in Dell's case.....and most SMB's I work with would rather have an iphone or android than a blackberry

      1. Paul S. Gazo

        Not as of eight months ago.

        BESX 5 (Exchange released in March, Domino a couple days ago) doesn't require CALs and is good for up to 3,000 users per install/database. Depending on how you cluster things on your Exchange server, you may be able to run more than one BESX per enterprise. Not sure.

        You're thinking about BPS 4, which had a user cap and you had to pay for CALs.

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